This question goes out to all the people who actually believe that gay sex is immoral. I am formally challenging that belief. If any of you honestly believe that gay sex is immoral, give your reasons here. I reserve the right to challenge the validity of those reasons.

Attendance by Bap33 is mandatory. By the way, that avatar is pretty gay for someone who's homophobic.

I didn't mean it to sound like the Nazi were linked by religion or race/tribe, I meant that their target for extermination need only be Hebrew.

Do you think the Nazi (before going full strong-arm) used the nanny state mentality to foster the German public into supporting the forced wealth transfer from the Hebrews in Germany? From what I have read it seems like the Nazi got the public on their side by letting it be known that German's would be the shop owners, as soon as the cheating Jews were removed (for their own safety). I think that helps to explain how a public that was smart, and kind, and religious, and free, fell for the Nazi lie.

When democracy becomes tyranny by majority, we get demo-crazy, and bad things happen.

very good point.
I would imagine this is why we were supposed to follow the constitution until the political monster grew too big, and votes started being purchaced by vote seekers. When that started happenening, the founders expected free Americans to remove the political tyrants and start over from page one of the constitution. We may have missed our chance, or we may not be so bad off that we are ready to get our hands dirty. Or we are lazy, fat, and unwilling. Must be the turkey. lol

False statement, my ass. The Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, Bush's entry into the Iraq War. All caused by religion.

Especially the Holocaust! Dan, you blind yourself.

Spanish Inquisition never used mass killing.

Nazism: totally Christian

Absolute nonsense. You shoot such things all the time. Either come back to something reasonable or let's stop this discussion.

michaelsch, you have a completely wrong view of history. Of course the Nazis were Christians. That's why they killed the Jews. Christians had a long, long history of blaming the Jews for problems and killing them.

Yeah, the Nazis weren't Christian my ass. Who's that leaving church? Oh yeah, Hitler. And what does he have to say?“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”
- Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941

To deny the influence of Christianity on Hitler and its role in World War II, means that you must ignore history and forever bar yourself from understanding the source of German anti-Semitism and how the WWII atrocities occurred.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

And as for the Spanish Inquisition...

The Spanish Inquisition lasted 356 years from 1478 to 1834. That's 356 years of torturing and killing people. It is estimated that several thousand people died, and that's just the ones we know of. Countless others were tortured and permanently maimed. To in any way defend the Spanish Inquisition or to try to minimize that atrocity is utterly despicable and ridiculous.

And yes, religion was certainly the cause of the Spanish Inquisition. Religion, your religion, was intrinsic to this abomination.

"I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."

Yes, religion played an integral part in the unjustifiable deaths of about one million Iraqi civilians including children.

Freedom is Obedience to Tradition
Woman's World is Husband, Family, Children, Home
Fight Prostitution & Encourage Early Marriage
Media Must be Cleansed of Sexual Filth
Decline of Christianity in Europe is Dangerous
Institution of Marriage Must Be Defended (Fuck, that's DOMA)
Christian Missionaries Should Look to Europe
Burn out the Poison of Immorality (liberal excess)

Hitler's platform reads like an American Christian conservative platform.

Germany was by and large a Christian nation, and socially conservative at that. Hitler was in no way a Christian but he was a politician who recognized he had to coopt the Christians over time. Kinda like modern-day American conservatives, yes.

very good point.
I would imagine this is why we were supposed to follow the constitution until the political monster grew too big, and votes started being purchaced by vote seekers. When that started happenening, the founders expected free Americans to remove the political tyrants and start over from page one of the constitution. We may have missed our chance, or we may not be so bad off that we are ready to get our hands dirty. Or we are lazy, fat, and unwilling. Must be the turkey. lol

Both sides are doing the vote buying with our money. And I'm afraid our political system will collapse on itself. Sometimes AF's well humored advice, doesn't seem so far fetched.

Of course the Nazis were Christians. That's why they killed the Jews. Christians had a long, long history of blaming the Jews for problems and killing them.

I have a sense of Deja-Vu about this topic.

Just to further Dan's Argument:

Hitler's second treaty during his Government - the first was recognizing Lichtenstein as an independent state - was with the Vatican. It allowed the Vatican to continue operating in the Third Reich so long as the Church supported the Fuhrer. It was signed by future Pope Pius XII on behalf of the then Current Pope, Pius XI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat

In the Jews and Their Lies (German: Von den Jüden und iren Lügen; in modern spelling Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) is a 65,000-word antisemitic treatise written in 1543 by the German Reformation leader Martin Luther.

In the treatise, Luther describes Jews as a "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."[1] Luther wrote that they are "full of the devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine,"[2] and the synagogue is an "incorrigible whore and an evil slut".[3]

Jews presented as Pigs (and the Torah being received from a Pig's Vagina) were a common theme on Church and Cathedral walls in Germany - both Catholic and Protestant:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judensau

Besides the Jews, other main boogeymen of the religious tend to be Masons and Jesuits; with Protestants and many Catholics hating both equally. It's not a surprise, because both groups tend to uphold knowledge generally, as well as the independence and sovereign status of various cultures.

Interesting one for any jeans or trouser wearing women:
"The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD." Deuteronomy 22:5

Note that "Abomination" is the SAME EXACT WORD used in OT for homosexuality:
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. -- Lev.20:13

It's also a crime to mix fabrics. So no wearing synthetic socks with your cotton pants.

There aren't any prohibitions against homosexuality per se until you get to Paul

Actually I think there is a pretty harsh statement about it in Leviticus somehwere, which is very early in the bible.

Patrick, you've quoted me out of context, which isn't really fair. If you look at what I wrote in context, and at what Leviticus actually says, you'll see that the condemnation isn't necessarily of homosexuality per se. Read literally (and fundamentalists claim to beleve the Bible literally), it actually condemns bisexual orgies:

BTW now that we've mentioned adultery and the 10 commandments, it may be worth remembering that Leviticus condemned bisexuality (possibly only threesomes), not homosexuality per se. An earlier comment mentioned the link between promiscuity and HIV. If you look at the statistics, a majority of people with HIV are women and children. The women tend to get it from their cheating husbands, and most of the children were born with it. If there is overlap between Biblical rules and disease (remembering that the germ theory of disease was not understood during Biblical times), then disease might be one reason for the repeated prohibitions against adultery. There aren't any prohibitions against homosexuality per se until you get to Paul, who by his own account disagreed with nearly everybody, especially the early Christians.

Conjunction:
Used to indicate that something happens during the time when something is taking place: "Frank watched him as he ambled through the crowd"

Read literally, which is what fundamentalists claim to do, it says man shall not also lie with mankind at the same time as with womankind. (If you read "as" more broadly to mean "to the extent or degree" then it might apply to bisexuality, but still not homosexuality per se.) There are other condemnations in the Bible, including condemning women wearing men's clothes (e.g. trousers) as noted by Thunderlips, but those aren't about gay sex per se. There are also plenty of other "abominations" and restrictions in Leviticus, e.g. eating pork or shellfish, handling pigskin (football), wearing clothing of mixed fiber, and Jews dining with Gentiles. Leviticus mainly differentiates the Jews from the Gentiles, so it is a misuse to cite it as a source for broader morality or laws of general application. Some people mistakenly call all of Leviticus' prohibitions "laws", but most are not laws per se; to the contrary, Leviticus says you must have one law, both for yourselves and the stranger who lives among you. Leviticus is like telling the Amish or the Hasidim to dress a certain way and renounce certain things so they'll stay separate; it isn't intended as a law on everybody, and it would defeat the purpose if everybody then dressed the same way and renounced cars in favor of horse-drawn carriages. The only express prohibition in Leviticus against everyone is child sacrifice, which applies both to the Jews and everyone in the area; Muslims violate that literally for their "honor killings" and other denominations ignore it figuratively when they cut off kids who leave the faith or otherwise transgress against it. Many people claim to follow the Bible, but they don't really; for example, they wear clothing of mixed fiber, cut the corners of their beards, and ignore other prohibitions from Leviticus, but then fixate on their misreading of Leviticus 18:22 for reasons of their own (Bap).

The Spanish Inquisition lasted 356 years from 1478 to 1834. That's 356 years of torturing and killing people. It is estimated that several thousand people died, and that's just the ones we know of.

The Spanish Inquisition was a court, sic. It was bad, it was torturing and killing people, but it never did mass killings. There are other examples, like crusades, Bartholomew's night etc, but they are unrelated to the Inquisition.

In 356 years it killed about 40,000 people and each case was documented. Yes, that's horrible, but we talk about 356 years and the area much bigger than just Spain.

During their suppression of Vendee revolts French revolutionaries killed hundreds of thousand of civilians. Apparently it was the first genocide in modern history and it was commited by the first atheist state in modern history.

As of the 30 years war, which indeed started as a religious war, interestingly enough, so called Catholic France fought more on the protestant side, thus proving that the religion was more or less a formal pretext for the war, while real reasons were political, social etc.

This is my last post on the matter: as I said you take all Nazi related staff out of context. Since I think you are smart enough to understand that you do not look for the truth but only look for supporting arguments, IMO there is no use to keep talking about it.

This is my last post on the matter: as I said you take all Nazi related staff out of context.

Heavens, no! we would not want to take any of this "out of context":

And of course we would only want to use full "context" when discussing why Hitler would want to re-institute using a cross (yes the same cross that originated with the Catholic order of Teutonic Knights) for the highest military medals:

What the Nazi insiders actually wanted was to forge a new religious movement, with paganistic Germanism at its center.

Bormann to his gauleiters: "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable."

Perhaps, but Bormann was also a brown-noser and somewhat of an "outsider" when it came to the Nazi inner-circle.

Yes, there is a lot of evidence that Hitler and Nazi's engaged in occult types of activities. Of course no one today as any vested interest in trying to distance themselves as far as they can from the Nazi movement, and paint Nazi's a devil worshiping pagans. What is it they say about who gets to write history...? Also, we know that no true Christian would do anything that a Nazi would do (Just ask Bap).

Could the endgame of the Nazi leadership have been to morph from Christian to paganism? We will never know (Thank god), but certainly the Neo-Nazi movement is still very staunchly Christian.

Anyway, could have-should have-would have...it is relatively immaterial because Hitler sold Nazism to the German public as a Christian movement and right up till the end Christianity was the official religion of Germany. I assume like many politicians and preachers he did not believe fully, but given his interest in the occult he did believe in some sort of spirituality. Who knows...he was never caught snorting meth off a male prostitute (like *ahem* other christian leaders) so we don't have a lot of "hard" evidence as to his true beliefs concerning the bible.